Lokka Tattur
by norickayer
Summary: Wanda Maximoff doesn't care what the doctors and Professor X say, she wants out of this institution. OR Loki helps a child whom others have failed to save. (sequel to Be Careful Making Wishes in the Dark)
1. Chapter 1

**Lokka Tattur**

The walls really did close in when they put Wanda into solitary confinement. Her normal room was a sterile white box furnished with a simple plastic cot and little else. She might have compared it to a hospital room, had she ever seen one. The solitary box was more like a metal trap. It was a cube of metal inside a huge, warehouse-like room housed in an auxiliary wing of the institution that had been Wanda's home for the past five years. When she misbehaved, when she got angry, when she became too much of a burden, the doctors would wrestle her into a straightjacket and march her into the center of the room, where five giant pistons pushed five square walls together, enclosing her into a box without ever leaving a bottleneck for her to take advantage of.

The doctors sometimes call it "time out" to her face, but she knew that her punishment had more in common with a prison sentence than a child's reprimand. She'd call it what it was.

There was no interaction with her fellow patients when she was sent to solitary. There were no chaperoned walks through the grounds. There were no windows. All interaction with the staff was stunted, and no one addressed her directly until her punishment was over. Ever since she turned fifteen, they had increased the duration of her punishments to six hours of silence, of darkness, of deprivation. To say that Wanda hated it would be like saying that she thought her father could use a stern talking to. Solitary confinement was an effective threat. Wanda's breath hitched and her blood ran cold just thinking about it. A sharp look and a mention of that place could ring the rebelliousness from her blood in two seconds flat. There was no use, anyway. The only way she'd ever gotten the staff to listen to her was to convince her counselor that something needed to be changed.

Professor Xavier at least heard what she had to say. He seemed to care about her, in his own distant way. He advocated for her several times in the past year, got the staff to give her extra privileges, like walking the grounds. He even convinced them to let her have a little makeup, although she'd used up all of her first batch scrawling rude messages on the bathroom walls. The new stuff was better anyway, she liked purple.

He still thought her anger was 'childish tantrums', and that she had to learn to control. Wanda bet he'd never been imprisoned in a place like this, otherwise he wouldn't be so stupid about it. Of course she was angry! She had every right to be! But he was her only hope to get out before she turned eighteen. She had gotten pretty close to getting him to promise her he'd take her away. He ran a school somewhere in upstate New York, and he said- he _said_- she had a place there, once she got her powers under control a bit more.

Wanda lies on her back, staring up at the darkness that obscures the metal ceiling a mere 12 feet above her head. The lack of light is so complete that the darkness might as well be the void of a starless night sky. Wanda pretends that's true. She imagines she's lying on the grass in the grounds outside the institution, where the nurses take her for walks when she's been particularly cooperative. She's never actually been allowed outside after dark, but she can see the sky from the window of her usual room, and she knows it does get dark like this, sometimes.

If she can remain calm and concentrate hard, she can make the metal of the box give off sparks, which look enough like stars. Today isn't a good day, and instead of making stars, her magic just makes the metal groan and the air start to smell of rust. If it goes too far she'll be punished again. Wanda's hands shake, and she allows them to fall to her sides on the hard floor. No stars today, just dark.

The shriek of metal-on metal assaults Wanda's ears. She jolts from her relaxed pose, curling in on herself to protect her ears from the noise.

The walls are moving. Every time she's released from solitary confinement, Wanda wonders if this time something will go wrong and the walls will move toward her instead, crushing her and killing the witch once and for all. They don't, just as they never have. (Just as they someday will).

"Wanda." Her doctor says her name like he's disappointed in her, like he has any right. What's he doing here, anyway? It can't have been six hours yet. She tells him as much, her voice rasping from lack of liquid. His eyes change for a moment, an ounce of concern showing for just a moment before it is washed away by the ocean of his indifference, "Professor Xavier is here for your biweekly session. He's a busy man; he can't always reschedule because of your misbehavior."

Horror stabs at Wanda's chest. The doctor's disappointment is constant, and thus can be ignored. The Professor though-

Wanda doesn't regret her escape attempt. She hates it here and she'll destroy every room in the entire complex if that will get her out once and for all. But now, she wishes she had put off the attempt a few days. If she keeps getting sent to solitary, Xavier will never believe she has control over her temper. By his own admission, that's the only thing keeping him from taking her out of here.

She stands up on her own and allows the orderlies to fit her arms into a straightjacket. They say it's required by policy, but Wanda knows it's a show of power, just like her escape attempts. They know she can't afford to disobey now, not when her session with the Professor is on the line. She lets her arms go limp, just to make it that much more difficult for the orderlies to force her body into the constraints. Serves them right.

She's escorted through the halls by a pack of staff members: orderlies, guards, and the doctor himself. The other patients get to visit in the lounge, but she's been dubbed "too dangerous" and "non-compliant", so Professor Xavier meets with her in a damp stone room that looks like it belongs in a Dracula movie.

"Wanda, have a seat." It's stupid, because this isn't his house and the doctor is just going to force her to sit down for the session anyway, but Wanda appreciates that the old bald guy at least tries to pretend she has a choice. She manages to wriggle a finger out of the restraints and lets the buckles on her jacket fall to dust. With her hands free, she pulls out a chair for herself and flops down. She ignores the doctor's sputtering complaints, and instead looks straight ahead at Xavier. He's smiling slightly, as if trying to hide how amused he is.

"Thank you Doctor Bennet, we have everything under control." Xavier smiles at the doctor even as he dismisses him. The doctor looks reluctant to leave a man in a wheelchair alone with a young woman who can control bad luck, but he eventually goes anyway. Wanda isn't exactly sure who Xavier is- he has a school for mutants somewhere in upstate New York, but his influence is more than just some private school principal. For one thing, he managed to get visitation with her at all, when no one had tried since her father dropped her off years ago. For another, the staff tended to listen to him when they wouldn't even hear Wanda.

"The staff tell me that you're in time-out again," Xavier says to open the conversation. "They say you've been 'non-compliant'." The old man quirks a smile, as if they're both in on some joke. Wanda doesn't agree.

"When are you getting me out of here."

"Wanda, you know my stance: there will always be a space for you at my school-"

"But you can't let me around the other kids until you're sure I won't snap and disintegrate their bones," Wanda finishes bitterly.

Xavier winces at her bluntness, but agrees. "Essentially, yes. You need to learn to control your anger before you can rejoin the outside world." He always talked like controlling her anger was something she could just _do_. Wanda isn't sure she remembers what it's like to not be angry. She's not sure what else she could be if she wasn't angry- maybe dead.

She's sedated the next time she has a visitor. Her eyes won't focus right, and the florescent lights are vacillating between regular 'bright' and 'blinding'. She could have sworn that Doctor Bennet was in the room with her, but she hears two voices and neither of them are him.

A doctor's lab coat turns into blue skin out of the corner of her eye, and Wanda shuts her eyes tightly. She doesn't want to hallucinate. If she hallucinates then she'll never get out of here. The two voices are talking, but not to her. They're wrapped up in a conversation _about_ her, which is depressingly familiar to Wanda. It's two women, one whose voice is tempered with age and an unfamiliar European accent. The other sounds sharp and cultured, confident and cutting.

"I can see what you mean. There is much anger in the child, but I should be able to handle her," the old woman says.

"Mmm," the other purrs in pleasure, "how soon can you be ready, Agatha?"

There is a pause, and Wanda almost drifts off to sleep in the interim.

"Three days' time. I'll get my affairs in order so I can devote all of my attention to this scheme of yours."

Wanda loses the battle with unconsciousness, and misses any reply the younger woman might have made.

When she awakens, she is in her cot in the white, sterile room.

Wanda hates this place. She hates the smell of it, she hates the cold stone of the older rooms and the impersonal white of the newer ones. She hates the fake smiles of the orderlies and the way no one looks her in the eye anymore unless they're reprimanding her. She doesn't hate the other kids who are locked in here with her, but she thinks they probably hate her now, so she might as well write them off as a loss.

She didn't mean to wreck the TV in the lounge, but she can't stop her powers from activating when she gets mad. She can often direct them once she's powered up, but she can't tamp them down and drown them out, no matter how many sessions she sits through with the Professor. They used to use mood stabilizers to keep her calm (and foggy, and nauseous), but Xavier put an end to that when he started visiting her last year- he was vibrating with anger himself, pale hands clutching the armrests of his chair when he told her that psychoactive drugs are not tested for minors, and especially not mutant children.

She thinks being locked in a 10x10 metal box probably isn't good for minors either, but that hasn't stopped them from putting her into solitary at the slightest provocation.

The orderlies are acting weird today. It's the college guy with the freckles all over and the angry woman with her hair in a bun. Freckles has been around for the past month, but probably won't last much longer. He's been getting jumpy, and the stress will probably get to him before long. The angry woman has been here longer- at least a year, although anything prior to that is blurry in Wanda's memory.

She isn't acting very angry now. Instead she's the jumpy one, clenching and unclenching her hands and glancing around as if looking for an exit. Freckles, by contrast, is remarkably self-assured. He's leaning against a wall, watching the proceedings as the guards wrap her arms into the straightjacket for the second time this week. Wanda lets her arms go limp and concentrates on other things, like two orderlies stopping to stare at a routine outburst from a patient. No one else is staring. The other staff members are hurrying about, making themselves scarce. The other patients are clearing the area, unwilling to get involved.

Wanda glares right into Freckles' eyes as she's marched past, just on principle. He doesn't react.

"What are you waiting for?" asks the woman with frown lines.

"Did you see what she did to that television?" the man with freckles responds, "And the boy who lunged at her- she made him punch himself in the face!"

"Yeah, wish I could do that," the woman responds, staring pointedly at her companion.

"Okay, let's go." The man makes to walk away, but the woman grabs the cloth of his scrubs to stop him.

"What are you doing? We're not leaving her here."

"We can't take her now," the freckled man says evenly, "She can blow lightbulbs and redirect punches; do you want to find out what she could do to your portals?"

The woman's hands become still, clenched at her sides. "She doesn't want to be here. You've _seen_ this place."

"We'll be back! We need some way to limit her powers if we don't want to get entropy'd to death," the man shrugs, unrepentant.

"We can't just walk away from this, Loki-"

There's a distant crash, and both speakers instantly jump to attention, drawn to disaster and mayhem like a dog to a dinner bell. The lights flicker overhead. The whole hallway shakes as if an earthquake got lost trying to find a fault line and decided that New York was a fine place to visit.

"It looks like Wanda decided for us."

The girl skids around the corner as if on command, the untied arms of her straightjacket trailing behind her like the ugliest ribbons ever. She raises one arm in warning, and both orderlies jump out of the way, hugging the walls of the hallway as Wanda runs between them.

The woman with the frown lines locks eyes with the freckled man. He frowns, but it looks more like a pout.

"Fine," he admits, "I'll get the guards."

In the blink of an eye, the freckled man is gone, and in his place stands an exact copy of Wanda. She runs back around the corner, catching the pursuants by surprise and managing to avoid capture as she lures them away.

The woman with the frown lines and tight bun turns on a heel and bolts after the real Wanda. The kid is fast, desperation fueling her strides. The other woman is faster, through practice and natural ability.

The older woman overtakes her, only to stop in front of an unassuming wooden door.

She grasps the doorknob and casually tears the door off its hinges. Wanda stops running in shock.

"You- you're a mutant?" The woman ignores her.

"In here," she commands, gesturing into what looks like a utility closet. The older woman doesn't wait for Wanda to obey, just steps inside, expecting the girl to follow.

She can't hear anyone else running after her. They've never tried trapping her before. Wanda's curiosity gets the best of her.

The room is the size of a small bathroom. There are two large trashcans on wheels in the corner, and the walls are covered in shelves containing all of the boring necessities for running an institution of this size: bedpans, blankets, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, etc. Two black birds are perched on one shelf, staring at Wanda with small black eyes. That's unnerving enough, but stray wildlife fail to keep her attention in the face of what's in front of her:

Set into the floor is a large five-pointed star, glowing gold.

"What _is_ that?" Wanda demands.

The older woman smiles faintly. It looks out of place on her face, like a shirt that doesn't quite fit.

"That's the exit."

Canvas shoes slap the linoleum floor outside of the closet, and Wanda's heart begins to race again. They've found her. The light bulb illuminating the room fizzes and explodes. She can hear more footsteps now, a whole group of people looking for her to put her back in the box.

A single figure skids to a stop in the doorway, almost falling over in their haste to stop.

She looks just like Wanda, from the choppy hair and crudely done purple eyeshadow to the remains of a straightjacket wrapped around her torso.

"Who the hell-" Wanda begins to say.

"Go, go, go!" her double urges, and tackles her to the ground.

They don't hit the linoleum floor of the utility closet. Instead, they fall against the glowing star, and through it. They land in a jumble of limbs on unfamiliar dirt. The two birds from the closet dive after them, and scatter more dirt as they fly too close to the ground.

Wanda's double rolls off of her and yells "America!"

Despite this non sequitor, the stern woman understands. She turns toward the star- now hovering in the air above the three of them- and somehow dismisses it.

"Who are you!" Wanda cries. She wanted to escape, yes. She wanted out with all of her heart. But she wanted to break herself out. She wants to control where she is and what she does for once.

Wanda's double waves a hand, and with that gesture both of Wanda's rescuers change. The afterimage of Wanda and the orderly remain in the air for a moment before she can clearly see what's under them- two young adults. One, the woman who dismissed the portal, is tall and serious. Her hair falls in thick brown curls that just about match her skin. The magic user is paler, and dressed in a lot of green.

"I'm America," the woman says. "The asshole is Loki."

"We're here to save you," Loki says with a smirk.

Wanda grits her teeth. The ground gives a tentative tremor, as if deciding whether to shake. Behind her, a tall oak tree shrivels and dies, its leaves turning brown and falling to the ground.

Loki puts up zir hands in a placating gesture. "This is your fault," ze hisses to America.

America crosses her arms and rolls her eyes.

"Rage all you want, there's nothing you can hurt out here," America says, ignoring Loki.

If Loki had said those same words, they would have been a threat: no one can hear you. You are alone with us out here. America's tone is more reassuring: They won't come for you here. You can't destroy anything important here.

Without really thinking, Wanda tilts her head back and stares up at the sky.

The stars are coming out.

Professor Charles Xavier doesn't get a call for several hours. The administrators comb the grounds, make stunted inquiries to local police stations, and send out a search party of luckless interns before admitting defeat.

As Charles listens to the nervous explanation from Doctor Bennet, he reflects that things could be worse. Wanda has only run away. Charles is very good at finding runaway mutants, and this one may very well wind up on his doorstep without any further intervention. Still, he'd better send a team to find her; she's only a teenager and she hasn't been given the chance to develop the skills she'd need to take care of herself on the run.

Mystique doesn't find out Wanda's gone until later, when she infiltrates the hospital only to her quarry has left without her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Lokka Tattur**

America never claimed to be great at planning. Her brand of super-heroism is more immediate. She's at her best when pointed toward an enemy that needs to be punched really hard. Until she joined the Young Avengers, she'd never felt the need to settle down in one location for very long, so she's unused to being responsible for the aftermath of a heroic rescue.

Wanda seems unused to being the target of a heroic rescue, so at least they're on even footing. America is not great with plans. Maybe it would have turned out better if she had gone along with Loki's plot to contain Wanda's burgeoning reality-warping powers _before_ they broke her out. At least then Loki would still be here to help, instead of dumping Wanda on her and taking off for parts unknown.

No. America might trust Loki to watch her back, to construct plans that will reach their goals, and to leave the Demiurge relatively unscathed by zir plots, but America knows better than to trust Loki unquestioningly. She can trust zir to always do the smart thing, but not necessarily the right thing. She knows that grabbing Wanda early might not have been the best idea, but it felt like the right one. Since America left Utopia, she has sometimes doubted her senses, her memory, and her place in the world, but she has never doubted her sense of right and wrong.

The ground is trembling like the deck of a ship. Wanda shifts from foot to foot, trying to keep steady. She covers her ears with her hands, her movements jerky. "No!" she yells. The ground does not obey.

America has a much easier time keeping her footing. "You're not hurting me. This place is deserted, it's ok to destroy stuff here." She glances up at the branches of the dead oak tree.

One of the bird-constructs left with Loki, but the remaining CrowCam is perched steadily on a warped, naked branch. Its head pivots between America and Wanda, its lense-eyes shine even in the dim light. The boys had better not be filming this part. Wanda doesn't need more invasions of her privacy, even if the viewers happen to be in another dimension.

Wanda slides down into a sitting position, her back leaned up against the tree trunk. Every so often a branch creaks, or bits of bark fall off. All the grass in a ten foot radius is brown and shriveled.

"What do you want from me?" Wanda asks. She's staring at the ground, willing it to be still.

"I'm not sure we ever had a plan after breaking you out," America admits, "I don't care what Loki wants, I'm not going to let zir do anything to you that you don't want."

"What_ I_ want?" Wanda echoes softly.

"Yeah, where were you headed after you escaped?"

The whistle of the breeze, the soft clicking of the mechanical parts of the CrowCam, and the ambient buzz of wildlife fill the silence.

"You didn't think that far?" America asks in surprise. A wave of shame washes over her. That means _no_ one thought this through. There is no plan.

"I just… wanted to get out."

"Do you have anywhere you can go? I can pretty much get you anywhere."

"There's… nowhere else. I've lived at that place since I was just a kid. My father left me there. I hoped- they said I might be able to go to Xavier's school, but I'm too dangerous."

Taking people out of their dimensions of origin is usually a terrible idea. It messes with the timeline, it's isolating and unfamiliar to the immigrant, and it tends to cause all manner of unnecessary complications. Despite the risks, America is seriously considering bringing Wanda back to Earth-616.

"I have a friend back home with powers like yours," America confides. She glances at the CrowCam. It cocks its head at her, but she's pretty sure that's just pre-programmed bird behavior, not any kind of communication from her teammates on the other end.

"No one has powers like mine," Wanda argues. "The Professor said he'd never seen anything like me."

"I'm from pretty far away. My friend does magic like you, and it doesn't always work like he wants it to."

"How does he control it?" Wanda asks cautiously. America glances hopefully at the CrowCam again, but it remains silent. There really is no one watching.

"He's got these mantras he uses, I think they came out of a self-help book or something." America wishes she paid more attention when Loki was giving Billy magic lessons. "He uses the words as a focus, and repeats them until it works." That's pretty much it, right?

Wanda looks incredulous. "Okay," she says insincerely.

Loki needs to get zir ass back here to help explain this, because America is floundering. "I mean, it might be more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it."

"So I just call out what I want to happen?"

"Pretty much."

Wanda looks around speculatively. Her eyes linger on the dead grass, on the brown leaves that litter the ground at her feet.

"I want the grass to grow back." She looks hopefully at the ground. Nothing happens. America shrugs and gestures for her to continue. "I want the grass to grow back." Nothing. "I want the grass to grow back!"

The soil shifts. There's a low rumble, like distant thunder.

"I want the grass to grow back!"

The ground trembles and shakes. America is thrown from her feet and lands on her hand and knees in the dirt.

"I want the grass to grow back!"

There's a cracking sound, like popcorn kernels being heated in a pot. Pinpricks of pain erupt along America's palms.

"I want the grass to- oh my god."

Sharp green blades of grass reach up out of the earth, crowding out their shriveled predecessors.

"You did it." America looks over at Wanda. Their eyes lock, and slowly both girls break into smiles.

"I did it!" Wanda shouts to the heavens. The CrowCam leaps into the air in surprise, but quickly settles back onto a branch further away.

Wanda giggles again, and the ground shakes once more. Behind them, the oak tree creaks ominously before falling to the ground in two pieces. Shit.

Wanda howls in frustration.

"No! If I can't keep control, I can't go to the school. I'll just hurt everyone. It's useless!"

America watches the CrowCam, circling them from far above. Unless Wanda can call lightning, it should be safe up there.

"We'll just… try something smaller."

The carnations are blooming nicely, America notes. They smell more than a bit like antibacterial soap, but maybe that's natural for carnations? America isn't exactly an expert on flower smells.

The CrowCam interrupts its orbit and dives, aiming directly for her. At the last moment it opens its black wings, catching the air and allowing it to land on America's shoulder instead of crashing into her head. It opens its beak, but instead of a screech or a caw, a human voice is emitted from the tiny magic-enhanced speaker inside the creature.

"America, Loki needs to be picked up," the bird speaks in David's voice.

"Great," America says without enthusiasm. She closes her eyes and feels for the magic tether that connects the two CrowCams, the flare that will guide her to Loki's location. Ten paces North, three West should do it. "You might want to stand back," she warns Wanda.

America leans back and kicks her worn red sneaker at a certain point in the air. Instead of swiping through empty space, her foot connects with the fabric of the universe, the space between spaces.

The boundary shatters like a mirror, revealing a five-pointed star leading to Loki.

The god zirself leans through, grinning zir usual grin.

"I like what you've done with the place," ze says, noting the patchy grass and the Oak tree that has somehow sprouted carnations.

"Just get your ass in here," America demands, pulling Loki through the portal by the lapels of zir coat.

Zir wrists are encased in something that can only be described as 'broken scifi handcuffs'. Loki explains that that description is basically correct.

"They're magic-dampening. They aren't good enough to totally block all magic, but they do a pretty good job of letting most of the power you pour into them leech out into the air instead of into spells." Ze's smiling as if ze is looking for praise.

"You got yourself arrested?"

"It was all part of the plan," Loki assures them.

"Does your plan include how to get them off?" America asks.

"Well. Not so much."

"Is that for me?" Wanda asks, gesturing to Loki's wrists.

"Hopefully," Loki agrees, "If someone could just get them off of me."

"Do you want them?" America asks Wanda. "We could just leave them on Loki." It's a joke, but it's also an offer. Wanda isn't a prisoner. She doesn't need to agree to this.

"My powers are too dangerous the way they are." Neither of them glance back at the burned black scar left on the oak tree. "If this could work, _I want it_."

With those words, a fizz and metallic click sound, and the cuffs' locking mechanism releases.

"Did you mean to do that?" America wonders.

"Kind of?"

Loki fiddles with the power dampeners until they disengage completely. Ze reaches toward Wanda, wordlessly asking for her hand. Wanda tentatively places her hand in Loki's. The Norse god smiles at her, and gently turns her hand over so that her forearm is facing up. With zir free hand, ze fits one cuff onto Wanda's arm. It clicks closed easily, and automatically rearranges its panels so that it fits Wanda's smaller arm.

"I can take you pretty much anywhere," America reminds her.

"Xavier's school."

"Are you sure-?"

"Yes."

"Well, that was exciting."

"Shut the hell up, Loki."

A/N: Not sure about America's characterization here. This is the first time I've written her. Usually she'd prefer to be more taciturn than she is in this chapter, but she's kind of off her game here: she's in an unfamiliar situation, she's feeling guilty, and she feels responsible for Wanda, which makes her much more willing to open up than she'd normally be.

Psychotropic drugs help a lot of people, but they are often inappropriately given to children to keep them quiet (example: in this fic, Wanda). Professor Xavier fills the role of "overworked slightly out-of-touch social worker" who wants the best for Wanda but doesn't have a whole lot of resources, besides bullying the staff a bit. Wanda is not terribly sympathetic to this, for good reason.

_Lokka Tattur_, or Loki's Tale is folktale from around the 13th century. From Wikipedia_: "In the ballad, a farmer loses a bet with a giant, called Skrymir, who demands his son. The farmer asks first Odin, then Hœnir, and finally Loki for assistance._"

This retelling takes the original story elements and remixes them with Marvel canon: _Loki helps a child whom others have failed to save._

Feel free to write up a comment if you've gotten this far- otherwise I don't know what's working and what isn't in these fics.

What the hell was Loki up to during this chapter? You'll find out in the sequel: _Loki and the Dwarves_.


End file.
